Quote:
Originally Posted by Thor
I have a unique perspective on this thanks to spending so much of my life outside of Iceland, I will say early 90's that Iceland definitely had issues with racism, in fact in some small percentage of the people I'd say xenophobic issues.
A lot has changed in the last 20 yrs, a noticeable minority exists now where as in the 80's/90's just seeing a non white person would make your head turn.
In the nordic nations, there is definitely some of that, although the younger generations growing up with diversity are not going to be anything like their previous generations. The real 'racial' issues now are a lot more to do with growing immigration concerns and many perceived fears of Islamic groups moving in and changing the culture they hold so dear.
Just because you don't call them 'liberal' countries by your American standards if that is your standard those nations are certainly by many definitions more liberal and yes more socialized/institutionalized. By no means a libertarian haven.
If its simply a debate about how people are given rights, how they are protected and nothing else; I'd hazard to say it would be hard to find countries more liberal than these countries.
But I'm no expert on this issue.
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I have Danish heritage and I can say basically the same. I think when people say "liberal," they mean CNN liberal. That is, they understand liberalism within the crude context of the modern political spectrum. Philosophically, the way liberalism developed into the societies we see today is pretty different. It's not about progress and it's not about tolerance.